1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods for fabricating a flat panel plasma display and more particularly to methods for fabricating gas plasma display panels with high resolution monolithic structures using thick film process technology.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The UV-excited phosphor plasma display is a promising technology for large-area high-resolution color displays. However, current thick-film technology is a major limiting factor in color display device size and resolution, since it cannot provide long barriers with the density and cross-sections required. Specifically, materials and processing techniques known in the prior art do not make possible the fabrication of long dielectric barriers 0.025 mm wide and 0.025 mm high for full-color plasma displays with increased resolution.
In the prior art, display panels employing gas discharge are well known and a variety of such display panels are commercially available. A typical structure of a gas display panel utilizes a substrate with an array of electrodes and a dielectric layer thereon, and a cover, which may also include a dielectric layer, placed so as to define a gap therebetween. A gas which is capable of being ionized, such as neon with 0.1 percent argon added, is sealed within the gap. The display is defined by locally induced glow discharges in the gas produced by applying a desired potential to selected electrodes in arrays embedded in the dielectric layers.
In one form of plasma display panel, known as the "twin-substrate" design, a first array of parallel electrodes is embedded in the dielectric on the substrate, and a second array is embedded in the dielectric on the cover in a direction orthogonal to the first array so as to define display sites at the crosspoints of the two arrays.
Since the late 1960s, when flat panel display R&D began to flourish, the interest in non-interfering precision spacers has expanded. Such spacers can be fabricated in a number of ways, either as self-supported structures or as deposited patterns, primarily via thick-film application. Screen-printing is the most widely used method of thick-film patterning to date, and it is widely agreed that it is not easy to print 0.125 mm lines or 0.200 mm vias; the fine line screening limit for thick-film materials is 0.125 mm wide by 0.025 mm thick at best.
Although it has been possible to generate 0.150 mm wide by 0.100 mm thick layers of thick-film dielectric barrier and cell structures via multiple screening techniques, the uniformities obtained have generally been unsatisfactory, the process costly and there are density and substrate size limitations.
As display sizes increase and pixel dimensions decrease, it becomes clear that screened thick-film patterns are not able to satisfy the display spacer needs for most applications. Display researchers, who daily address the problems associated with high resolution displays, have been investigating other spacer approaches. They have resorted to a number of techniques such as chemically etched thin silicate glass sheets, drilled mica, other self-supported structures, or to mechanically-grooved dielectric geometries on the substrate. Prior to the present invention, all of these approaches have not proven useful in providing accurately positioned geometries on very tight centers.